NRC and the changing stands of pol parties

The contentious NRC has occupied the centrestage in Assam from the publication of its first draft over a year and half ago and the major political parties in the state have repeatedly changed their positions on it.

The NRC is touted as the proof of Assamese identity and it is hoped that it will filter illegal foreign nationals, an issue that has affected the state for decades.

When the updation of the National Register of Citizens began in 2015 the Tarun Gogoi-led Congress was in power in the state. The political scenario had changed by the time its first draft was published on January 1, 2018 as the BJP under Sarbananda Sonowal had come to power in Assam in 2016.

BJP president Amit Shah had batted aggressively for implementing NRC not only in Assam but throughout the country to identify illegal immigrants.

He had even compared the situation in the state due to infiltration with that of Jammu and Kashmir.

Claiming that BJP had intiated the updation, he had told a public rally in the state in February "We (BJP) will not allow Assam to become second Kashmir. We will deport each and every infiltrator with the help of NRC"r.

The BJP, he had asserted, is committed to the people to bring in NRC across the country to "chuck out" all infiltrators.

But after becoming the union home minister in the Narendra Modi II government, Shah has not publicly spoken on the issue yet.

Instead the union home ministry in a statement on August 20 said that non-inclusion of a person's name in the final NRC list does not by itself amount to him or her being declared a foreigner. It also assured that adequate arrangements have been made for appeal against it.

At a high-level meeting chaired by Shah and attended by Sonowal, the ministry had decided to amend the rules to increase the time limit of filing of appeals in Foreigners Tribunals from 60 days to 120 days for those whose names do not figure in the NRC.

"It has been decided that state government would also make arrangements to provide legal aid to the needy people amongst those excluded from NRC," the statement said.

Sources in the BJP said that the change in strategy was necessitated after it came to be known that many suspected illegal immigrants were able to include their names in the citizens register by forging documents and that almost half of the named excluded in the complete draft of NRC were those of Hindus.

"As per available information the final list will not be very different from the complete draft of the NRC. Only 20-25 per cent of the total excluded names will find place in it. This means that a huge number of Hindus will again be excluded from the list," the sources told PTI on condition of anonymity.

Infact the BJP governments both at the Centre and the state seemed to have apprehensions about the updation under the supervision of the Supreme Court. It had appealed twice to the apex court for sample re-verification to find out wrongful inclusions, especially in districts bordering Bangladesh, and exclusions of persons in the NRC.

The state government may explore legislative options to deal with the wrongful inclusion or exclusion of some names in the NRC after its final publication tomorrow, Sonowal said.

BJP had shifted stands on the NRC earlier too. It had expressed apprehensions about the efficacy of the NRC process when it had begun during Gogoi's tenure, but Sonowal had claimed this year that it was done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 as per his election commitment to the people of Assam.

Sonowal had even visited the NRC headquarter here on his first day in office as chief minister and promised help from the state authorities indicating the importance that his government accorded to it.

Hoisting the National Flag on Independence Day in 2018, he had iterated his commitment to the NRC by saying "We will keep a strong eye so that no name of any foreigner is included in the NRC ... The government is committed to ensure that no Indian citizen living in Assam is excluded from the NRC."